Now that you have booked your Disney World
vacation the real work begins. You need to come up with your gameplan. Every person is different and the vast amount of activities and options at Walt Disney World make this a non trivial task. In addition to your theme park plan that should include the attractions and entertainment you wish to experience you need to consider dining, special tours, as well as recreation options.

The way we
go about filling in the days is to make a series of lists. The first
is a "wish list" of things we want to do. The second is a list of
the attractions and entertainment we want to experience in the parks.
The final list is of where we want to eat. Once you have this information
for everyone in your group you can begin to map out the days. Your
schedule may be very simple (go see a theme park one day, and then
go do something another), or if you are on an all-inclusive package
you will end up with a jigsaw type scheduling job.

Things to remember when scheduling: a) You
want to make sure to optimize location. Meaning if you want to spend
time at the Studios and want to eat at the Sci Fi diner be sure
to do it on the same day. If you are going to take the Steam Train
Tour at the Magic Kingdom and want to go boating try to do it the
same day since Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon are right next
to the Magic Kingdom.
b) You will also want to try to balance your schedule. Meaning if
you have several people all with different interests make sure you
plan a variety of individual and group activities to include all
members of your group.
c) Pay attention to the day of the week. Certain days have early
openings at a specific park. Others have late closings. Try to optimize
your time in the parks. Also make sure you understand Disney's FastPass
system. It can save you time if used properly.
d) Remember to take into account traveling time. It takes quite
a while to get from place to place (especially if your on a tight
time schedule it seems to always take longer).
e) Discuss with the group and come to an agreement on how long you
want your days to be. If you are a true tourist diehard you can
go from pre-dawn to well after midnight for a week straight, but
very few people can handle this, especially on vacation. You will
probably want to have a mix of early and late mornings. We have
found that if you schedule a variety of activities in the morning
it makes getting up easier than just saying you will get up and
go to a park (after a few days of this people begin to wimp out
and use the snooze button).
f) Remember to plan in free time (or make-up time). This is time
to do whatever you want. Whether its go back and see an attraction
you missed… or your favorite one again… or maybe its just time to
sit around the hotel pool.

Now that you have a
rough plan its time to start getting serious. You need to make some
phone calls to Disney and start making reservations. It is best
to prioritize what you want and when you want it. We have found
if you call early on in the allotted time there is usually no problem
getting what you want (what I mean here is if you can make tee times
30 days in advance do it at least 25 days to get what you want,
depending on the season of course and what you want). There are
two types of reservation types to be aware of. One is as soon as
you book you can make the reservation. The second is based on the
number of days till you go. There are four big dates you need to
remember. They are 120, 90, 60, and 30 days before you go. Most
Disney reservations fit into one of these categories and it changes
so check with Disney when you make your reservations (or there are
some other websites that keep this information up to date, its hard
for us being on the opposite coast to follow all the details of
WDW that change frequently).

Once you have the plan confirmed and have
all the reservations together be sure to talk it over with the group
you are going with. This does two things. One it makes everyone
a little more excited about going. Secondly it makes sure you do
not leave anyone out or plan things that no body wants to do. This
will save you headaches later on. Nothing is worse than getting
into major debates/fights over what to do next once you arrive.

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